ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanews/16 May) – Fifty-two of the 72 local government units in Region 9 have complied with the business permits and licensing system streamlining project initiated by the national government in 2010, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced Friday.
Grace Aduca, DTI Regional Institutional Development Division head, said this was contained in the latest monitoring and evaluation report from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) regional office.
The DILG and DTI had been jointly tasked to assist the LGUs in re-engineering their old, complicated permitting systems.
Aduca said the streamlining project basically refers to the simplification of the current business permitting systems of LGUs to make them more efficient, transparent, and investor-friendly.
She said the project aims to improve competitiveness both at the local and national levels by reducing the cost of doing business as well as by minimizing the avenues for graft.
It enjoins all LGUs to follow service standards in processing business permits applications through: (1) the adoption and use of a unified form; and through the reduction of; (2) number of steps, (3) processing time, and (4) number of signatories in securing said permits from the LGUs.
“Streamlining, simplifying or re-engineering, however you call it, is just the first step. But it is by far the most important component of the BPLS reforms we in the DTI and DILG advocate to our LGUs,” Aduca said.
“As soon as they (the LGUs) have finished streamlining, we now shepherd them through the second phase which is the automation of their system through the use of computers and e-BPLS software to make it even more efficient,” she added.
The official said some LGUs in the region availed of DTI assistance in procuring the needed computer hardware for automation through the grassroots participatory budgeting system.
She said their goal is to make all the 72 LGUs in Region 9 compliant with the national streamlining standards before 2016. (MindaNews)